When I was in second grade, my grandpa died suddenly on Thanksgiving Day. Just 60 years old, he had a heart attack on the street in Astoria, Queens. I remember my mom’s tears; that my brother and I were shuttled to our close family friends’ bustling Thanksgiving, where someone permitted me a sip of bereavement wine (adults were cheeky in the ’80s). Years later, I learned that none of the grownups gathered at my grandparents’ apartment, including five of my mom’s six siblings, could stomach Thanksgiving dinner, so my grandma brought it all—turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, peas, and pie—to the gas station attendant across the street. That became an important part of a sad story, one told about my grandma after she died decades later (incidentally, on Easter): Even on her darkest day, she thought of others.
Our family carried on with Thanksgiving in the years that followed—Nani put on “dress pants” and a brave face; my aunt made multiple varieties of stuffing—but no one’s heart was in it. A somber note hung in the air, mixed with the din of football announcers calling the game on TV. Instead, we doubled down on Christmas, the jollier, sparklier, indisputably superior holiday, full of merry-making, Santa mythology, and Mariah Carey appreciation. Thanksgiving was but a bridge to the main event; its conclusion every year gave our family tacit permission to blast the Chipmunks Christmas album, deck our tree, and sit in the glow of twinkly (always colored) lights, sipping hot chocolate with marshmallows and appreciating our own handiwork.
Thanksgiving took on new meaning when I got serious with my now-husband and began spending the holiday with his dad and stepmom and their family in Georgia. It was the way I was welcomed into another family. During our first Thanksgiving together, weeks after my husband and I got engaged, the ladies and I pored over issues of People announcing Kate Middleton and Prince Williams’s recent engagement, which paralleled ours. My stepsister-in-law gave me the loveliest little ring dish that has lived next to my bed ever since. There were two astute pugs—Winston and Rommel—who snored loudly in your lap during couch naps. (Mercifully, none of us are the Turkey-Trotting kind.) I welcomed Southern side-dishes into my life, dishes my family never had, like sweet potato soufflé and green bean casserole. We made new traditions together: Every Thanksgiving morning, we went to Waffle House with my father-in-law, where the servers knew and loved him well. In the years to come, my daughter would join us in a high chair and my son would play with the pugs on the living room floor.
When my father-in-law passed away last October, I lost my tie to Thanksgiving again. The day reminds us of him; it is almost synonymous with him. Carrying on with a classic Thanksgiving Day in his absence would only feel hollow. The thought of hosting, too—the time-consuming labor of shopping and the stress of gutting and stuffing and roasting a turkey—makes me want to take a nap. It’s safe to say we’re about ready to boycott the day altogether—and so, in a way, we are.
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